Apple’s original content ambitions just landed some premiere talent, per The Hollywood Reporter: A drama series focused on a fictional version of the morning TV…
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Greta Van Susteren is releasing an apology app called Sorry
Former cable news anchor Greta Van Susteren is ready to jump into the app market with an apology app, according to a Facebook post she…
Apple’s iPad could drop the home button and add Face ID in 2018
Apple is reportedly working on a redesign of the iPad that includes dropping the Home button and slimming down the bezels on the top-end model,…
Goldman Sachs leads $10 million round for data structuring startup Crux Informatics
Every financial services firm has a team of data scientists that take all the information that comes in and structure it in a way that…
Amazon is selling its own private label diapers again, now under the Mama Bear brand
Amazon quietly launched its own private label diapers on its site last week, this time under the Mama Bear brand. The brand, which already sells…
SpaceX Merlin rocket engine explodes during testing at Texas facility
SpaceX suffered an explosion of one of its Falcon 9 rocket engines during qualification testing at its facility in McGregor, Texas, per The Verge. The…
SegWit2x backers cancel plans for bitcoin hard fork
Advocates for a bitcoin hard fork have now decided to cancel plans for the so-called SegWit2x fork. The bitcoin blockchain was supposed to split into…
Founder Gym aims to help underrepresented startup founders build tech startups
Founder Gym, co-founded by Mandela Schumacher-Hodge and Gabriela Zamudio (pictured above), is unveiling its online platform to support and train underrepresented founders building tech startups.…
BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia
A Bitcoin transaction wastes as much electricity as it takes to power an American home for a week, and legendary coder Bram Cohen wants to…
TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 will be held at the Moscone Center West, Sept. 5-7
TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF is the pride of TechCrunch’s event line-up, and last September the event reached new heights, including 5,000 attendees, 1,220 investor-founder meetings, 500…
LinkedIn and Microsoft team up for a resume building assistant in Word
LinkedIn, the social network for professionals that was acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion, is today rolling out the latest product in its deepening relationship…
Chrome will soon make browsing sketchy sites less frustrating
When you’re browsing the web, there’s little that’s more annoying than clicking on what you think is a video and finding out that it was…
Twitter’s $99 monthly subscription ad program launches into public beta
Twitter unveiled in its Q3 earnings report that it had been testing a new, self-serve advertising subscription aimed at small businesses. That service, known as…
Most iOS devices now run iOS 11
Apple has updated its App Store support page with new metrics. As of November 6, 2017, iOS 11 is now installed on 52 percent of…
Lyft is testing a new rider experience with a small percentage of users
Lyft is giving around 1 percent of its riders access to a different, beta user experience in its mobile app, starting today. The new look…
Discounted student tickets available for Disrupt Berlin
Are you a student on a limited budget but still want to check out the best startup show in Berlin? We’ve got you covered. For a…
Volkswagen and Google to bring quantum computing benefits to cars
Computers have changed cars at least as much as they’ve changed our daily lives, but a new partnership between Google and Volkswagen could transform transportation…
Meet European bootcamp Rockstart’s first AI cohort
Back in April the Netherlands-based Rockstart bootcamp announced it was adding an AI track. It’s now named the first batch of startups in the inaugural…
Niantic’s follow-up to Pokémon Go will be a Harry Potter AR game launching in 2018
Niantic Labs had tremendous success with Pokémon Go, which paired their expertise in building location-based augmented reality mobile experiences with a top-flight IP with a…
Promote helps any online marketplace get into the ad business
The latest company to emerge from startup accelerator Expa Labs is focused on helping online marketplaces make money from advertising. Promote founder and CEO Siddharth…
Voice-enabled smart speakers to reach 55% of U.S. households by 2022, says report
Adoption of voice-powered smart speakers is taking off. According to a new report from Juniper Research out this morning, smart devices like the Amazon Echo,…
HBO launches Soderbergh’s choose-the-order storytelling app and show Mosaic
What if a mystery TV series let you decide to follow one character’s story to the end, or jump between characters as the action unfolds?…
Call of Duty WWII Review: A stunning return to the beaches of Normandy
For folks who have played Call of Duty since the beginning, this is a welcome return to the game they fell in love with. Soldiers…
Instagram now lets you add any photos or videos to your Stories
Instagram is turning on a feature that many users have asked for, letting users add photos and videos from their camera roll – even if…
Coffee Meets Bagel dating app introduces ephemeral video to foster authenticity
Coffee Meets Bagel, the dating app that serves up a small number of targeted matches each day, has today introduced a new video feature to…
User-generated content marketing platform Yotpo closes $51M Series D round
Yotpo, a platform that lets companies gather content from their customers in the form of reviews, Q&As, photos and videos, mainly for use in marketing,…
Famed VC Jim Breyer on finding the next Mark Zuckerberg (and much more)
Yesterday, at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, we caught up with Jim Breyer, among the most famous venture capitalists in Silicon Valley thanks to…
China Literature makes stellar public debut following $1B Hong Kong IPO
China Literature, the e-publishing business backed by Tencent, enjoyed an impressive debut as public company with its share price rising as high double during its first…
Apple said to be working on AR headset aimed for potential 2020 ship date
Apple is working on technology that would enable it to build an augmented reality headset by 2019, with shipping targeted for as soon as 2020,…
Real estate startup Compass nabs $100M at a $1.8B valuation
Today, the real-estate startup Compass is announcing that it has raised another $100 million — money that it plans to use to expand its sales…
Postmates launches grocery service, scheduled deliveries and revamped app
Postmates has always offered grocery delivery as part of its ethos of delivering anything to you within your city on-demand. Now, Postmates is taking a…
Uber adds LA to flying taxi test cities, demo flights slated for 2020
Uber has inked a partnership with Nasa over its flying taxi plans and says now it’s aiming to get demo flights up and running in…
WeChat owner Tencent snapped up another 12% of Snap this month
We already knew that Tencent, the owner of China’s messaging behemoth WeChat, was an investor in Snap when the company was still a startup going…
India’s Uber rival Ola to license in-car entertainment tech to vehicle makers worldwide
Ride-sharing companies the world over are branching out to go beyond just handling your car trips. In recent weeks we’ve seen Uber, the pioneer of the…
Ole Harms joins us at Disrupt Berlin to talk about Moia’s first year of exploring mobility
Volkswagen Group’s Moia sub-brand launched last year at TechCrunch Disrupt, with a focus on helping connect the dots between VW’s existing automotive business and a…
Researchers discover aluminum foil actually does improve your wireless speed
Researchers at Dartmouth University have found that a 3D printed shape covered in aluminum foil can improve wireless range and increase Wi-Fi security. The project,…
The BOLDR Expedition Watch lets you get away
BOLDR is a small watch company with a distinct style. Selling primarily on Kickstarter, the company has gone through a number of design iterations to…
Revolut is applying for a European banking license to become a true bank
It’s hard to believe that fintech startup Revolut still doesn’t have a proper banking license. Many users will tell you that Revolut’s electronic wallets already…
Amazon launches its Echo devices and Alexa in Japan
Amazon has continued its hardware push into Asia after it launched the Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot in Japan today. Alongside the hardware, it…
Crunch Report | Look, ma! No hands
Today’s Stories Apple Pay Cash launches in beta today, letting you send and receive cash in Messages Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public…
Facebook’s testing a new method to prevent revenge porn that requires uploading your nudes
Facebook is testing a new method to combat revenge porn in Australia, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation reports. The strategy entails uploading your nude photos or…
Smart trucking startup CargoX raises $20M
CargoX announced today that it has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs. The startup is currently focused on the Brazilian…
What happens when you sell your startup?
This is the final installment in the series “A Startup Takes Flight.” We started by creating a company — the Internet of Wings, a provider…
Spiegel hopes to save Snapchat with an algorithmic feed
Snap got destroyed by Wall Street today after a horrible Q3 earnings where revenue and user growth fell well under expectations. So to get things…
Snap is having a bad day
Ho boy — there are bad days and there are bad days in earnings season, and this is definitely the latter for Snap. The company released…
Snapchat share price craters on weak revenue and user growth in Q3 2017
Snap’s losing streak continued with today’s Q3 2017 earnings report that saw it miss financial expectations and add just 4.5 million users. Snap earned $207.9…
Twitter Officially Expands Its Character Count To 280 Starting Today
Twitter’s expansion to 280 characters is rolling out publicly today to all users in supported languages, including English. The company had first announced the controversial plan…
Vidrovr raises $1.25M to bring smarter video search to publishers
As video becomes increasingly important to the media business (to the point where it’s become a cliché), a startup called Vidrovr aims to help publishers…
UK bulk spying challenge in European Court of Human Rights
Legal representatives of the UK government faced a raft of questions today from judges sitting in the European Court of Human Rights hearing a challenge…
The Parrot Bebop 2 Power lets you boldly go where no drone has gone before
Parrot, the original household drone company, recently released the Bebop 2 Power, an upgraded version of the Bebop 2 with a better camera, better controls,…
These are Uber’s new ‘cultural norms’
At Uber’s all-hands meeting today, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the transportation company’s new “cultural norms,” which includes values like “We build globally, we live locally”…
New tools help could help prevent Amazon S3 data leaks
If you do a search for Amazon S3 breaches due to customer error of leaving the data unencrypted, you’ll see a long list that includes…
Apple Pay Cash launches in beta today, letting you send and receive cash in Messages
Apple is soft-launching direct, person-to-person payments in an iMessage today with the Apple Pay Cash beta. The feature, which was announced earlier this year, allows…
Acorns to launch new retirement accounts after buying Portland fintech startup, Vault
Micro-investment service, Acorns, which automatically invests small amounts from its customers’ bank accounts into investment funds, has bought Vault, a Portland-based developer of retirement fund investment…
Hayley Barna just became the first female GP in First Round’s history
Founder turned investor Hayley Barna is now a general partner with the early-stage venture firm First Round Capital. The appointment comes roughly one-and-a-half years after…
Google to launch an AirDrop competitor, file manager, and cleanup utility called Files Go
Google is preparing to soon launch a new mobile app called Files Go that will allow Android users to better manage the files on their…
Intersection raises $150 million for the global expansion of its free wifi
As it looks to expand the global footprint of its internet-enabled digital advertising and informational kiosks, New York-based Intersection has raised $150 million in a new round…
Facebook introduces a Messenger plugin for business websites
Facebook Messenger is coming to businesses’ own websites. The social network announced today the launch of a new customer chat plugin into closed beta, which…
MyMusicTaste, which allows fans to request live events, gets $11M Series C
MyMusicTaste, a Seoul-headquartered service that lets fans campaign to bring their favorite artists to their city, plans to double the concerts it organizes next year…
Netflix’s first Mark Millar project is a comic called ‘The Magic Order’
Netflix is launching its first project with Wanted creator Mark Millar, since acquiring Millarworld, the publishing company he owns and operates with Lucy Millar. The plan…
Instagram pushes more influencers to adopt its new format for sponsored posts
Instagram is moving forward with the rollout of its branded content tool, which allows celebrities and other popular users to identify posts that are paid…
Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
Waymo recently hosted a number of journalists at its private Castle testing compound, and treated us to rides with no safety driver behind the wheel…
Waymo’s first product will be its own on-demand ride hailing service
Waymo is firming up some of its plans around its initial go-to-market strategy for its autonomous driving technology. The company has talked about a number…
A major vulnerability has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars of Ethereum
Today is not a good news day for Ethereum. A vulnerability found within a popular wallet has frozen potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of…
Google to add restaurant wait times to Google Search and Maps, followed by grocery stores
Google announced today it will soon roll out a new feature to Google Search, followed by Google Maps, that will show you the estimated wait…
Why Adobe’s Advertising Cloud is (mostly) a private cloud
Adobe likes to talk about its public cloud partnerships with Microsoft and others, but it doesn’t often talk about its private cloud strategy. It’s no…
Amazon expands into private label sportswear and its first home furnishing lines
Amazon’s expansion into private label fashion continues with the launch of a handful of new sportswear brands, reports Bloomberg, citing data from L2 researchers. The…
Sourceress raises $3.5M to find candidates that managers want without realizing it
When a company is looking for a candidate for an open role, the hiring manager is probably going to rattle off a bunch of qualifications…
Airbnb management service Hostmaker scores $15M Series B funding
Airbnb continues to be an ecosystem in its own right, with a number of startups building a business by making the lives of hosts easier…
Lyft opens first permanent office in NYC
Ride-sharing provider Lyft is going bicoastal with its first ever permanent office in New York, which will house not only sales and marketing, but also…
James Comey changes his Twitter handle to @Comey
A quick update on the James Comey Twitter situation: The former FBI Director yesterday switched his Twitter handle over to his name. He now owns…
Tencent’s online publishing arm set to raise $1B in Hong Kong IPO
Tencent’s China Literature, an Amazon-like e-book business, is continuing the trend of Asian tech IPOs after it announced its public listing in Hong Kong will…
The government is handing out 10,000 Fitbits to research precision medicine
In his 2015 State of the Union, President Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative — a massive research project designed to gain more insight into…
The merger between AT&T and Time Warner is a raw deal for the rest of us
Any day now, the Department of Justice will announce whether the AT&T-Time Warner mega-merger will be permitted. And anyone with a cell phone, a cable…
Tesla acquires automated manufacturing machine supplier Perbix
Tesla is moving to turn around its output challenges with the Model 3, with a new acquisition reported by Bloomberg of a supplier whose focus is…
Intuit launches QuickBooks Capital, a small business lending service powered by AI
Intuit, the company behind products like QuickBooks and TurboTax, is getting into the small business lending space. With QuickBooks Capital, QuickBooks users can now get…
Proofpoint acquires Cloudmark for $100M in cybersecurity consolidation play
As malicious groups continue to become more sophisticated in their hacking techniques, cybersecurity efforts are attempting to expand in their reach, and that is leading…
OneWeb is a step closer to bringing its global, satellite-based internet services to Earth
The billionaire-backed corporation, which has raised over $1.7 billion from Virgin Group, SoftBank, Coca Cola, Bharti Group, Qualcomm and Airbus; just announced an exclusive $190…
Shape Security introduces tool to blunt impact of stolen password caches
Shape Security is a company you may never heard of, yet it’s been around for five years and its founders include former Googlersand DoD officials.…
Get three tickets with your Startup Alley Exhibitor package at Disrupt Berlin
TechCrunch Disrupt is coming to Arena Berlin on 4-5 December, and and we’re looking for rockstar startups to be a part of Startup Alley. If…
Amazon launches Alexa-less Fire TV Stick for international users of its Prime video service
We’re approaching one year since Amazon expanded its Prime video service to over 200 countries internationally, and today the company is doubling down on that…
Tencent is reportedly testing its own autonomous driving system
Tencent is making progress on its own autonomous driving system, according to Bloomberg. The report says that Tencent, one of China’s largest tech firms and…
Renault shows off self-driving car that can avoid obstacles as well as pro test drivers
French carmaker Renault has developed technology that enables self-driving cars to avoid obstacles in emergency situations at up to the same speeds as professional test…
ShopBack raises $25M for its cash back shopping service in Southeast Asia
One of Southeast Asia’s lesser-known startups has come out from under the radar today after ShopBack, a cash back-focused e-commerce service, announced it has raised…
Mojiworks raises £2.1M Series A to build games for Facebook Messenger
Mojiworks, the U.K. startup building games for messaging apps, has raised £2.1 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Balderton Capital, with…
Lyft’s chief operating officer will leave by the end of this year
Lyft’s chief operating officer Rex Tibbens plans to step down by the end of the year. The news was first reported by Axios and confirmed…
Crunch Report | Broadcom has its eyes on Qualcomm
Today’s Stories Broadcom offers to acquire Qualcomm for $70 per share Intel and AMD partner on graphics and CPU combo to challenge Nvidia Comcast’s Xfinity…
Microsoft acqui-hires cinemagraphic photo app Swng
Computer vision and clever imaging technology remain hot areas in consumer and enterprise apps, and today Microsoft is picking up a startup called Swng Technologies…
Big tech goes five for five
As October came to a close, three of the five largest American tech companies beat earnings expectations. The quarterly results of Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet were…
Neos launches IoT powered home insurance UK-wide
What do you get if you combine the Internet of Things with the business of home insurance? UK startup Neos is hoping the answer is…
Challenger bank Monzo raises another £71M from Goodwater Capital, Stripe and Michael Moritz
Monzo, one of a number of “challenger” banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, continues to be on a roll, both in…
Facebook, WeWork and others use this startup to make swag
Swag, especially good swag, can be important. That’s where Swag.com comes in. The company, which launched 15 months ago, aims to be a way for…
Snapchat isn’t working and users are freaking out
Snapchat is having some technical difficulties with its service and its 173 million daily users are not happy about it. Some people are having trouble sending and…
Salesforce and Google are the latest pals in the cloud
Salesforce and Google inked a deal today that could provide easier integration between Salesforce tools and Google’s G Suite and Google Analytics. It also named…
Tesla electric semi truck reveal confirmed for November 16
Tesla will unveil its electric semi truck on November 16, the company confirmed today via email invites sent to press. The invites feature a full-size…
Tests give iPhone X display top honors, but camera is merely competitive
Lab tests on the recently released iPhone X put Apple’s new flagship in the highest tiers of quality when it comes to the display and…
Boxed shows off the automated tech it uses to ship toilet paper and more
Boxed offers the online equivalent of the bulk shopping offered at stores like Costco. But big discounts aren’t the only thing the company’s focused on.…
Apple has reportedly relocated its international tax residency to Jersey
Last year, the European Union ordered Apple to pay up to $14.5 billion for illegal tax benefits in Ireland. The company has learned an important…
Comcast’s Xfinity internet service seems to be a bit broken nationwide this morning
Having issues with Comcast this morning? You’re very much not alone. Right around 10 am Pacific, we started seeing reports from both coasts that the…
A tale of two chip stocks
Broadcom confirmed this morning that it would offer to acquire Qualcomm in one of the largest tech deals of all time, and one that would…
iPhone X first weekend adoption tops the iPhone 8 models
The iPhone X is already showing strong consumer adoption, according to a new report from Localytics out today, despite the fact that long shipping delays for…
Photoslurp bags $870k for its ‘shop the look’ UGC marketing platform
Bootstrapping Barcelona-based visual commerce startup Photoslurp has taken its first external funding: Announcing €750,000 (~$870k) in pre-Series A financing, led by Spanish VC Inveready Technology Investment Group,…
B&O’s Beoplay E8 totally wireless earbuds really are the total package
Bang & Olufsen’s headphones tend to stand out from the crowd, and their new fully wireless mode, the Beoplay E8, is no exception. The E8…
Hellocar is another UK car buying startup closing doors
The used car market seems ripe for disruption, not least in terms of customer service and creating a better experience online. However, if recent events…
Apple offers more bonds to finance its $300 billion capital return program
Apple just started selling new bonds in order to finance a share buyback program and dividends for shareholders, as Bloomberg spotted in a filing. This…
Google is surfacing Texas shooter misinformation in search results — thanks also to Twitter
Google has once again been called out for algorithmically encouraging the spread of dubious, politically charged speculation and misinformation around a topical news event. Read…
Amazon Cash, the service that lets you use cash to shop Amazon online, arrives at 7-Eleven
Amazon Cash, the service that lets consumers add cash to their Amazon.com balance at brick-and-mortar retailers, is now available at nearly 8,000 7-Eleven convenience stores,…
Google launches Resonance Audio, its new spatial audio SDK
As augmented reality slowly proliferates with the promise of bringing computer interaction into three-dimensional space, platform giants like Google are tasked with bringing every sense…
Album+ organizes photos with A.I. that runs on your phone, not in the cloud
A new iOS app called Album+ is taking advantage of the increased A.I. capabilities and GPUs in modern iPhones to help people better manage their…
Backstage Capital invests $50K in singer Kehlani’s tech startup
Music artist Kehlani is getting into the tech business and she’s tapped Arlan Hamilton’s Backstage Capital for funding. Backstage Capital, the venture capital firm focused…
Pienso raises $2.1M to help non-programmers interact with machine learning models
Though the world could probably use a few more machine learning experts, there are a lot of non-programming specialists whose expertise could directly benefit ML…
The CEO of Cambridge Analytica plans a book on its methods, and the US election
Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica (CA) plans to publish a book on his firm’s approach to online campaigning, and it’s role in the…
IDC forecast predicts strong demand for iPhone X in China
Apple’s return to growth in the saturated China smartphone market was echoed by a report from IDC, out this morning, which attributes the rise in Apple’s…
Intel and AMD partner on graphics and CPU combo to challenge Nvidia
Intel is working with AMD to produce a chip for notebook computers that pairs an Intel CPU with an AMD graphics processor, with a small,…
Ink raises $7M to make printing on college campuses less painful
Ink, a Nebraska-based startup focused on revamping on-campus printing, has raised $7M from VTF Capital, SQN Venture Partners, Invest Nebraska and NE Angeles. This brings total…
Kobalt raises $600M to buy up (and monetize) more music copyrights
Kobalt, the music tech startup that has built a platform for rights holders to track incremental and full plays of music across a wide sea…
Broadcom offers to acquire Qualcomm for $70 per share
Following rumors over the weekend, chipmaker Broadcom has today confirmed it has approached wireless chipmaker Qualcomm with an acquisition offer that values the company at…
Quip adds an App Store as it pushes toward full-blown collaboration platform
When Salesforce bought Quip, a document-based, mobile-first collaboration tool for $750 million last September, it may have seemed like an odd purchase, but Salesforce and…
ChartMogul grabs $2.2 million to build the financial dashboard of your subscription business
What do you do when you want to create a software-as-a-service startup but it feels like everything has been built already? You build a product…
Salesforce to offer more customized AI with myEinstein
It’s been just over a year since Salesforce introduced Einstein, a set of artificial intelligence technologies that are designed to underlie and enhance the Salesforce product…
Meet TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher at Web Summit on Tuesday
Two Minute Techcrunch! Since it’s impossible, as a journalist, to crawl around all the stands at Web Summit, I thought it would be easier to…
The Jolt is a $500 electric bike for the masses
Electric bikes range in price but the best ones come in just north of $1,000. Now, however, you can own a foldable electric bike with…
I want to hear your pitch in Oman this Thursday
Just a remind that I’m holding one of our patented MicroMeetups in Muscat, Oman on Thursday November 9th from 3pm to 6:30pm. We will meet…
New Samsung ad attacks Apple for 10 years of inferior iPhones
It’s been some time since Samsung mocked Apple with videos on the inferiority of the iPhone — the exploding Note 7 set that argument back…
Announcing the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2017 Agenda
TechCrunch Disrupt is returning to Berlin for the first time since the original Disrupt Europe in 2013. Disrupt Berlin 2017 is one of the largest…
Kaodim raises $7M for its home services platform in Southeast Asia
There’s more funding for Southeast Asia’s growing local services space after Kaodim, a Malaysia-based startup that operates in four countries in the region, raised $7…
Uber rival Grab crosses 1 billion rides in Southeast Asia
Grab, Uber’s fierce rival in Southeast Asia, announced today that its service has crossed one billion completed rides. The firm hit the milestone on October…